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Uncle Johnny’s Girl Farm: Pulp Magazines and Utopian Fantasies

On Sunday, March 19th at 1 pm, the Oneida Community Mansion House (OCMH) will host Dr. Molly Jessup as she speaks about mid-twentieth century male escapism and pulp fiction fantasies in her presentation Uncle Johnny’s Girl Farm: Escapism Through Utopian Fantasy.

Today, the Oneida Community is known for its utopian social practices, including equality between women and men. But in the 1950s and 1960s, a number of men’s magazines, such as Man’s Conquest and Men, published salacious stories about “Uncle Johnny’s girl farm” and “the sex cult that rocked New York.”

Those pulp-fictional stories not only misrepresented the history of the Oneida Community, they also expressed mid-twentieth century notions of male gender roles and monogamous marriage in their sensational re-inventions of ‘utopian’ alternatives.

Molly Jessup, historian and curator of education for Oneida Community Mansion House, explores how the authors of twentieth-century pulp fiction sought to influence popular attitudes about gender roles and equality.

The program is free to members of OCMH; $7 for non-members, including house admission.

The Oneida Community Mansion House (OCMH) was once home to the 19th century utopian Oneida Community (1848 – 1880), in which men and women shared their life and work on equal terms. Today, OCMH preserves, collects and interprets the material culture, intangible heritage, architecture and landscapes of that period. The Mansion House is a National Historic Landmark and history museum chartered by the New York State Department of Education.

Oneida Community Mansion House is located at 170 Kenwood Ave., Oneida. For more information visit their website or call (315) 363-0745.